


A Games for the Young to Play

by EnjolplasmicGranticulum (foggys)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, First Quarter Quell, Hunger Games AU, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-27
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-09 15:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/775537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foggys/pseuds/EnjolplasmicGranticulum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They call themselves Les Amis, the friends, from a long-abandoned language once called French. Led by Enjolras, they gather every month in secret and return home to whisper into ears and rile up all they can. And they wait for an opportunity.</p><p>Then as the First Quarter Quell draws near, they prepare. When it comes, they’re ready.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This was an idea I had as an actual Hunger Games AU. I had 7,000 words, and then I realized that Gale was probably not selfless enough to die without making sure that her family was alright.
> 
> And then I figured that Les Amis would probably fit into this as well. So here you are.

District One

Enjolras has always been the golden boy of District One. It’s only natural that he’s the leader of their rebellion.

District Two

Bahorel is among the best, the biggest, the fastest, the strongest. But not all strong people are mindless brutes. He can think, and he can fight, too.

District Three

They say Combeferre is a genius, a brainiac, a strategist. People like him always have a plan, even when the only people to set it in motion are a small group of teenagers ready to overthrow the government.

Courfeyrac is a charming boy, and the Capitolites of the Training Center adore him. All the more reason to get involved, lest the Capitol seize him, too.

District Five

Cosette has been sheltered all her life in the upper echelons of her district. So, despite her father’s warnings, she jumps at the first chance of liberty and freedom.

District Six

Joly’s unnatural, they whisper. Too afraid, always seeing the worst in everything. But who ever said a hypochondriac wasn’t a good person to have on your side?

District Seven

Musichetta darts and weaves between the trees, tiny and powerful like the creatures from the stories long ago. Nymphs are friendly and helpful, and of course she’ll do anything to help them.

District Eight

When Feuilly’s parents died, he fled, and nobody cared enough to look. He doesn’t reappear until the whispers of the rebellion twists through the woods and trickles into his ears.

District Nine

A chemical explosion seared off Bossuet’s sebaceous glands when he was ten. He’s the least lucky of them all, but the most cheerful, and everything, even rebellions, needs a little happiness.

District Ten

Gavroche flits from plantation to plantation, taking what he can and managing to live. Young as he may be, he’s a survivor, and he doesn’t hesitate to join them.

District Eleven

Jean Prouvaire flies from limb to limb, nimble and slight, murmuring forbidden poems as he goes. He’ll do anything to liberate his people, and his poetry, too. After all, birds can only be caged for so long before they take the first chance they can to fly out.

District Twelve

Grantaire lives on the streets, bartering and painting what he can for a drink. He wanders without purpose, until one day, his golden Apollo calls, and for the first time in his life, he follows.

Eponine wasn’t always poor, but when her father was caught and flayed within an inch of his life, she was cast out onto the street to beg from the beggars. She joins because there’s nowhere else to go.

* * *

They call themselves Les Amis, _the friends_ , from a long-abandoned language once called French. Led by Enjolras, they gather every month in secret and return home to whisper into ears and rile up all they can. And they wait for an opportunity.

Then as the First Quarter Quell draws near, they prepare. When it comes, they’re ready.


	2. Enjolras and Combeferre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Have you got a plan, Combeferre?"

It starts near the end of the 23rd Hunger Games, when the District Four male, Moss Dorian, goes insane. He yells profanities at the Capitol, and it’s broadcast into Enjolras’s Combeferre-enhanced, one-second-delay television in District One.

Enjolras leaps up from the chair at his desk, where he’d been watching the Games. He turns the volume of the television up so he can still hear what happens. In his excitement, he jumps out the door, all but slipping down the narrow staircase of eight steps into his bedroom. There, he dives for the dim space under his bed, where he rolls until he is on his stomach and he faces the inside of a leg of the bed. He raises his arms, hands splaying over the splintery wood, searching for a smooth cool circle. He finds it, and digs his fingernails into the rim to pull it out.

From the television above, he hears a strangled cry and sob, then quick, uneven footsteps.

Enjolras, invigorated again, almost yanks out the knob in his haste. Blue light suddenly lights up letter on the edge of the circle. Once his eyes are adjusted, he scrambles to unlock it. His fingers fumble as he turns the dial to R, then E, then V.

R-E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N

It’s a long password and Enjolras is impatient, but it works, and he’s unwilling to change it.

The lock unlocks with a click, barely audible over the sound of Moss’s heavy breathing and the quiet “Aella?”, full of wonder, doubt, and desperation. Enjolras winces, shaking his head grimly at the poor boy’s sanity. A wave of indignation rises in his chest. But he’s going to change it.

Enjolras pulls open the door and reaches inside the hollow leg of the bed. Inside, a little green light switches on, triggered by the door. Enjolras smiles slightly at Combeferre’s consideration.

Inside is a stack of neatly-folded, marked maps and plans, and on top is a silver oblong object with a number pad and a black circle on top. He tugs the black rod - antenna, Combeferre once corrected him - out until it is almost as long as the device itself.

Enjolras leaves the secret door ajar and rolls back out again. He sprints back up the stairs to his study and slams the door shut, turning to the television with fervor. The cameras right now are trained on Moss, on his back in a bush and wailing, his voice the voice of a madman. When he shifts, Enjolras can see the grass beneath him stained red.

It makes Enjolras’s fists clench, seeing a boy a year older than him driven insane by a monstrous “game” in which their government forced him to participate. But he remembers that he has a satellite telephone in his hand, and quickly checks if it’s warmed up.

It is, and Enjolras quickly presses a code into it that enables him to connect to Combeferre. He holds the device to his ear, careful not to touch the antenna, and listens to its buzz.

Soon, Combeferre’s voice fills the telephone. “Enjolras?”

“Combeferre, did you see Moss Dorian?”

“Not on regular television, of course.” A low, dark chuckle. “But I’ve been watching the live broadcast as a Gamemaker might see it, which is a version of the one I installed for you. Did you know there are precisely one hundred forty-two seconds between what is happening in the arena and what the regular viewers see?”

“No. But smart of the Capitol, to be able to cut out everything spoken against them, and show its citizens the blood and tears and cruelty.

“But there’s a reason why I’m contacting you. This is the spark we’ve been waiting for.” Enjolras takes a breath. “The Districts must know that there’s something going on. The people are not stupid. Should this be revealed to the Districts, they will be inflamed, furious. They will realize just how far the corruption has set in, in the Capitol. And they will rise up against the tyranny, strong as a surging wave, and they will act to take the so-called government down. And we, we will guide it. And the people will be free.” He pauses. “This is what we’ve been waiting for.”

“Well said, Enjolras.” A pause that suggested that he didn’t agree with Enjolras. “But it’s not going to just happen. We need individual people to support our -- our _cause_. You can’t expect the districts to just get up and rebel.” And there’s Combeferre, the ever-practical one. “We have to build up a -- a network of people in the districts. A network of spies, sort of, who support our cause and will spread the word to people.”

“Have you got a plan, Combeferre?”

* * *

A day later finds Enjolras striding nonchalantly through the front door of his lavish mansion. His hands are thrust deeply into the pockets of his red coat. He walks at a brisk pace toward the poorer neighborhood. Peacekeepers nod to him as he passes, and he nods coolly back. Nobody stops to demand why he is walking toward the fence side of District One.

(As much as Enjolras loathes his father, sometimes there are certain advantages of being the only son of one of the wealthiest merchants in the district.)

His surroundings shift slowly, turning from the clean, wide asphalt streets of his upper-class neighborhood to the cobblestone streets of the small Merchant area. He can hear activity from the town center to his left, but doesn’t stop. Then he passes into the lower-class neighborhood, where the often-lopsided, dilapidated houses line the crooked, dirty streets, and the people shoot him equally dirty looks. He does his best to ignore them. He’ll change it soon enough, but he can’t attract attention. Not now, when he’s so close.

Soon he passes even the poorest neighborhood, and veers into an unpaved path, near a heap of garbage that smells like the time the sewers burst in the street near his house and waste flooded the pavement. Flies and other insects swoop around his head as he goes, walking as fast as he can, and slimy creatures crawl across the ground. But he leaves that behind, too.

Enjolras keeps walking, until he is well past the residential area on this side of the district. He’s in a meadow-ish area with unkempt grass up to the top of his boots. The fence of District One stands, humming with electricity. He trails along it, far enough away that he wouldn’t accidentally touch it, until he reaches the section with the enormous evergreen trees. Needles litter the poor soil, now only with patches of yellowish grass growing. The fence there has been partially cut away to accustom the growth of some of the trees’ branches. Enjolras doesn’t know why the Capitol doesn’t just chop down the trees. Too lazy to care for the people, he guesses.

Not that this inconveniences him in any way, of course.

Enjolras glances around furtively. There is no noise about, save the buzzing of the fence and the sounds of creatures beyond the fence. It’s all clear.

He starts to climb the tree closest to the fence. It is tall, with sturdy, easily-accessible branches, and juts out over the fence at one point. Enjolras climbs quickly, his slim frame making it easy to slip around the branches. When the jagged top of the fence is under him, he carefully steps around the trunk and along the lowest branch over it. Clinging to an adjacent branch for support, he lowers himself to his knees on the quivering branch. He scoots a little forward, turns sideways, grasps tightly on his branch, and swings down. The momentum almost makes his hands slip, but he manages to hang on. He drops, rolling on the dry ground before coming to his feet. Patting his pockets to make sure his items are still there, Enjolras sets off at a fast clip.

Enjolras rather enjoys the sounds of the woods just out of the district. It’s freedom from Panem and its tyrannical rule, a breath of fresh air -- figuratively and literally -- from the impassive consent of a people already given up. He would stay here, away from his father and the rest of the district, if he didn’t feel the need for change. And he can’t accomplish anything from beyond the fence.

The air warms up as the sun climbs higher in the sky. Plants and dirt crunch underfoot as Enjolras walks, listening to the mockingjay calls. Quick, high melodies bounce back and forth, repeating rapidly between the birds. The tunes are light and airy; Enjolras wonders where they’d heard it.

He soon reaches a clearing between the trees. Enjolras stops and pats his pockets, making sure that paper is crinkling in the right places. And then the mockingjay songs abruptly stop, and one mockingjay issues a low warning call.

Because a hovercraft has appeared in the sky.

* * *

“Hello, Enjolras. Long time no see,” says Combeferre as he helps him off the ladder.

“Hello, Combeferre. How are you?” Enjolras replies cordially, shaking the taller boy’s hand.

“I’m fine, thanks.” Combeferre leads him to the control of the hovercraft and takes his seat in the pilot’s chair. Enjolras sits at the copilot’s seat, careful not to touch the control screen, levers, and foot pedals.

“So, I assume that this visit has something to do with the discussion we had yesterday?” Combeferre looks at Enjolras from behind his oval-shaped glasses.

“Yes. I was hoping that speaking to you in person would further my understanding of your plan. And I have a few ideas of my own to add.”

“Ah.” Combeferre smiles a little, like he was expecting it. He probably was, reflects Enjolras a moment later. “It’s not really a plan yet, just a vague idea of how it might work out.”

“I still want to talk about it. This is the perfect chance for us, Combeferre! It has been twenty-four years since the people of Panem have been suffering. When they try to break away, the Capitol quenches that hope by slaughtering more people, more _children_ , to scare them. And it works. But this year’s Games are different. The Capitol has misjudged, focusing on entertaining their own rather than terrorizing the district citizens. The people’s flames are not doused; they are merely fanned out, but still smoldering, just waiting for a spark to light them again. We have to be that spark. We will truly ignite the people!”

“You certainly seem to be dead-set on doing this right now,” Combeferre remarks somewhat dryly. Then his voice takes on a more patient tone. “Well, I might as well go over it again. Can I see the first map?”

Enjolras extricates it from his coat pocket and unfolds it, spreading it out on the table.

Combeferre adjusts his glasses and sighs. “Well, okay. Here’s the plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 23rd Games in this are heavily based on the 24th Games in "Tears of Blood" by 24tributes24authors, which is on FF.net. (I strongly recommend that fic, by the way.) Sorry for the references.


	3. Courfeyrac and Bahorel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We have a proposal."

Courfeyrac is afraid for his life.

Because it’s hard. It’s really hard to be what’s considered the “best” of the Training Center. And yes, he knows it sounds so vain and self-absorbed (fine, so maybe he is, sometimes, okay, _most_ of the time), but he’s not kidding. It’s terrifying. Dangerous.

Because there are Capitolites in the Center who like him, and he knows full well exactly what happens to those they favor. They go into the Games as themselves, come out as a shell of who they were, disappear into the slimy clutches of the Capitol, and never truly emerge again.

Courfeyrac’s been dangling over the edge of that abyss ever since he was Reaping Age, desperately clinging on to the branch that the Capitolites have been gnawing away slowly for years. Until yesterday, when the green-haired monstrosity fluttered her inch-long purple eyelashes at him, and said, “Oh, Courfeyrac, I can’t wait to see you in the Games! I hope you’ll be in the 25th Games, when you’ll finally turn eighteen!”

There. He could almost hear that axe swing and the cold thunk of its connection with his branch, sending it - and him - flying into the pit.

He knows there’s no going back now.

It’s high noon and the blazing sun cruelly beats on his face as he drags himself to the Training Center. The hot sand and gravel shift under his bare, calloused feet, and he can hear the sound of the waves gently lapping against the shore.

Courfeyrac’s family should be on their ship right now. His father would be fishing, and his mother would be helping. They would be merrily exchanging quips and humming their made-up ditties, making happiness out of their situation and being good citizens of Panem. His quiet older sister would be cleaning the fish and taking care of his toddler brother. And they’d all be together.

They are all together, and the Capitol forced Courfeyrac away. But there is nothing he can do. Not now.

With a bitter - and somewhat melodramatic - sigh, he enters the air-conditioned air of the Center. The trainer managing the front stations is by his side in an instant.

“Hey, Courfeyrac,” he says. “Got some people here to see you. No, not from the Capitol,” he adds, seeing the boy’s face. “They’re in the back. I’d go out there now and talk to ‘em 'fore those Capitol ladies come back.”

Courfeyrac thanks him and winds through the Training Stations to the back. The doors for the boys’ and the girls’ locker rooms are shut, but the door to the supply room is half open, and there’s light inside. He cautiously steps in.

A boy with curly blond hair and a brown-haired boy with glasses stand there, waiting for him. He doesn’t remember ever seeing either of them before.

“Hey. I’m sorry, do I know y'all?” Courfeyrac takes on a jovial, easy-going tone, though he stays just inside the doorway, where they can’t touch him.

“No, you don’t,” the brown-haired boy says, moving across the room. The blond boy follows him. Courfeyrac manages not to step backward.

The brown-haired boy smiles gently, holding out his hand. “I’m Combeferre, and this is Enjolras. Are you Courfeyrac?”

“Yeah,” he replies, shaking their hands. “'Kay, I don’t think I’ve seen y'all much before,” _ever,_ “so...”

“We’re not from here,” says the blond boy, Enjolras. Courfeyrac notices that his speech is somewhat different.

An inkling of suspicion rises in him, and with it, an amount of fear. “What do you mean?”

Enjolras gives him a long, searching look, and then apparently decides to trust him. “I’m from District One, and Combeferre is from District Three.”

Panic jolts through Courfeyrac. He can’t be near these people. He’s too close to the Capitol, and his family will suffer. “What do you want from me?”

“We heard that you’re the most popular to the Capitolites in your district.” Enjolras waits for a response from Courfeyrac, and he nods slightly. “They’re sending you into the Hunger Games next year. Did you want to go?”

Courfeyrac swallows. “How do you know? Why do you care?”

Enjolras and Combeferre share a look that Courfeyrac can’t read. The District One boy turns back. “We’re planning a rebellion. Of the Hunger Games. And we’d really like you to join.”

And this becomes the very first secret that Courfeyrac’s ever kept from his family.

But if he’s headed to the Games and his inevitable doom anyway, what does he have to lose?

* * *

The majority of District Two disagrees with him, but Bahorel knows the Games are bad.

Any rational person can take a step back and see that throwing teenagers together, forcing them to kill each other, and broadcasting it as entertainment to the country is twisted. What kind of government would do that? But District Two had its first victor in the very first Games, and the prizes and rewards saved them all from salvation. By the time they won the Fourth and Fifth Games, the district considered it a godsend, looked forward to it, even. The people have grown greedy and dependent on the riches a victor brings.

Bahorel thinks that he’s one of the only people in his district who has any idea how terrible the Capitol is.

He generally tries not to say those thoughts out loud-- he’d really rather not be overheard by all those Capitolites hanging around. But, well, he’s not one to abstain from alcohol, and more than once, these occasions have ended in a drunken brawl and yelling loudly at the government.

(It really helps that the hopes of District Two’s sixth victory rides on his shoulders. Just two more years.)

But his peers and Trainors all know, and he trusts them enough, and they trust him enough, so they stay quiet to the Capitol.

Now the 23rd Games drone on, and Bahorel spends an increasing amount of time outdoors and in the Center. They only play the Games in the front and in the locker rooms, so he spars and throws knives and slashes open dummies, avoiding the sections near the front and sides.

It’s the day of his seventeenth birthday when the District Two male dies.

Bahorel enters the locker room one warm evening, dripping with sweat. The giant screen displays the girl from District Four caressing her stomach. Her eyes are scared, feral. He tries not to think about how her eyes could -- _would_ \-- be his the year after next, as he steps into the shower and drowns out the noise of the Games.

He dresses quickly when he gets out, trying to tune out the screen. He tosses his sweat-soaked shirt in the Center laundry, yanks out his duffel bag from his locker, and is about to slam it closed when a card falls out.

Bahorel picks it up. There are a few handwritten lines on the white paper addressed to him. The writing is clean and legible.

_Hello, Bahorel. My name is Enjolras. We’ve heard a few things about your opposition to the Games and the Capitol. We sympathize completely. Meet us in the town square at_ _nine o’clock_ _tonight it you’re interested._

His heart beating out of his chest, Bahorel reads it again. He turns the card over, looking for more lines, markings, something. But the other side is blank.

So, some person he’s never heard of found out that he’s against the Capitol. Not a big deal. But who’s “we,” and what would he be interested in?

But he goes anyway, arriving in the dark square with a knife in his belt. His hand clenches tightly around the hilt when he sees two tall figures, already there.

One figure, the slightly shorter one, moves toward him. Moonlight shines on his head of blond curly hair. He comes within maybe ten feet of Bahorel, and stops.

“Bahorel.” His voice is not a grown man’s voice, but a lot like Bahorel’s own.

He hesitates a little before speaking. “Yeah, that’s me. Who’re you?”

“I am Enjolras. And this is Combeferre.” Enjolras gestures to the other boy behind him, who’s walking up. Light reflects off his glasses, and Bahorel thinks it’s weird. No teenager in District Two wears glasses.

“Why d’you talk to me? What’s the card?” Bahorel hasn’t moved his hand off his knife.

“We have a - a proposal for you,” the other boy - Combeferre - says.

“Uh huh. And it has something to do with me talking against Panem. Am I gonna be punished for taking this proposal?”

A moment of silence, and then, “Yes, you could be.”

“Talk to me, and I’ll consider it.” Even though Bahorel thinks he already knows what he’s going to say.

“That is fine. Come with us,” Enjolras says.

“How do I know I can trust you?”

The two boys look at each other, and back at him. Combeferre speaks this time. “We’re not from District Two. I’m from District Three, and Enjolras is from District One.”

Bahorel feels a grin starting to creep across his face, and excitement thrums in his chest. “What're you doing here?”

“Trying to talk to you, and people like you.”

“I’ll listen. Where are we going?”

“We are going outside the fence. This way, Bahorel."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry! I've had this chapter written for a very long time. I just continued to put off editing and posting, figuring that I would put this up as soon as I had the next chapter written. That took a surprising amount of time; because I write by hand, I kept on losing it. Sorry for the wait, and I hope the story still makes sense.
> 
> It's summer, so that next chapter will probably be up soon.

**Author's Note:**

> A big thanks to lingerings, my beta.


End file.
